Instruments for assessing risk of bias and other methodological criteria of published animal studies: A systematic review

Krauth, D and Woodruff, T J and Bero, L

Environmental Health Perspectives (2013) 121: 985–992

DOI: 10.1289/ehp.1206389

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Results from animal toxicology studies are critical to evaluating potential harm from exposure to environmental chemicals or safety of drugs prior to human testing. However, there is significant debate about how to evaluate the methodology and potential biases of the animal studies. There is no agreed upon approach, and a systematic evaluation of current best practices is lacking. OBJECTIVE: We performed a systematic review to identify and evaluate instruments for assessing risk of bias and/or other methodological criteria of animal studies. METHOD: We searched Medline (January 1966 – November 2011) to identify all relevant articles. We extracted data on risk of bias criteria (e.g. randomization, blinding, allocation concealment) and other study design features included in each assessment instrument. DISCUSSION: Thirty distinct instruments were identified with the total number of assessed risk of bias, methodological, and/or reporting criteria ranging from 2 to 25. The most common criteria assessed were randomization (25/30, 83%), investigator blinding (23/30, 77%) and sample size calculation (18/30, 60%). In general, authors failed to empirically justify why these or other criteria were included. Nearly all (28/30, 93%) instruments have not been rigorously tested for validity or reliability. CONCLUSION: Our review highlights a number of risk of bias assessment criteria that have been empirically tested for animal research including randomization, concealment of allocation, blinding and accounting for all animals. Additionally, there is a need for empirically testing additional methodological criteria, and assessing the validity and reliability of a standard risk of bias assessment instrument.

Citation

Krauth, D., Woodruff, T. J., & Bero, L. (2013). Instruments for assessing risk of bias and other methodological criteria of published animal studies: A systematic review. Environmental Health Perspectives, 121(9), 985–992. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1206389 Animals, Double-Blind Method, Bias (Epidemiology), MEDLINE, Random Allocation, Research Design/standards, Risk Assessment/methods, Sample Size, Toxicity Tests/methods, Toxicity Tests/standards

Keywords

• Animals
• Double-Blind Method
• Bias (Epidemiology)
• MEDLINE
• Random Allocation
• Research Design/standards
• Risk Assessment/methods
• Sample Size
• Toxicity Tests/methods
• Toxicity Tests/standards